What’s Math Got to Do with It?: Establishing Nuanced Relations between Math Anxiety, Financial Anxiety, and Financial Literacy
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The article “What’s math got to do with it?: Establishing nuanced relations 2 between math anxiety, financial anxiety, and financial literacy” aims to investigate the relations between math anxiety, financial anxiety, and financial literacy. The theme is current and interesting, the article has potential but from my point of view some points could still be worked on:
· Insert in the text or in an appendix the items of each of the constructs.
· Add more recent references, especially 2022 and 2023.
· In the materials and methods section, insert an item “analysis techniques” to describe the regression and other tests.
· In Table 1 it is not clear whether Pearson's correlation was used. If used, remove from the table the correlations with nominal and ordinal variables (eg gender) since Pearson's correlation requires quantitative variables. Or alternatively use another correlation.
· In regression models, present the test results of the model's assumptions (normality, homoscedasticity, multicollinearity).
· I believe that a more robust methodological strategy would be to use structural equation modeling instead of several regression models. Thus, I suggest that authors consider reviewing the analysis technique. If you choose to keep the regression models, you need to add at least tests of the model assumptions.
· In the conclusions, it is essential to present the limitations of the study, mainly limitations related to the sample obtained and the biases inherent to the type of survey carried out.
Author Response
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Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
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Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Referee Report
“ What’s math got to do with it?: Establishing nuanced relations 2 between math anxiety, financial anxiety, and financial literacy ”
I would like to congratulate authors on their effort and study carried out. The paper has merit. The authors did a good job in addressing the importance of the research question, there is a need for considerable work on revisiting the manuscript and addressing the contribution of this research, to deal sample issues, modifying the tables’ format, and keeping consistency in presenting them. The authors need to add more discussion and policy implications to the conclusion section. I would encourage the authors to consider comments to improve the manuscript:
1. Line 27, 71 and 72 – „Many adults are not financially literate” this is a powerful statement. The financial literacy differs in analysed countries (OECD 2020 report) and quoted papers. In Slovenia, Austria and Hong Kong average score is 70% and above so this statement does not stand. Recommending to rephrased it.
2. Line 37-39 – I recommend to cite OECD/INFE methodology 2022. There are some differences in the quoted materials and OECD/INFE methodology
3. Line 103 – Author used “….North America amongst both children“ I recommend to used teenagers or students age 15-16 instead children to pinpoint deference.
4. Line 174-180 – you have stated “Researchers often…..“ cited those authors. Additionally, this is not correct because OECD and a majority of the authors in their analysis are measuring behaviour, confidence knowledge and attitudes in financial literacy.
5. Line 263-268 – The main issue of the study is the unbalanced sample. 59% female vs 41% males. Additionally, the age unbalance appears to be present also according to the data M=30 SD=10. This is a serious issue for this study.
6. Lines 253-261 were opposite the 270-277. Several question arises:
a. Were bots able to respond to the 2 “gatekeeping” questions or could be set by human to answer 2 questions to get to the survey part?
b. Were vouchers given/sent to email and anyone could use it or it was given to exact person “name and surname”?
c. Was this anonymous survey?
d. Was there a way to separate bot answer from human answers?
e. Some sections from Appendix B should be in the text line at least the most important ones – 260.
7. The limitation(s) of the study are missing.
8. Overall recommendation to the authors is to cited more recently publication. There is no reference from 2021-2023 and there are couple of the articles that are valuable for citing and improving the literature part of the article. There is as significant gap because papers on this topic already exists. Not just the quoted one.
a. I recommend authors to read and to cite
de Bruin, WB and Slovic, P (2022). Low numeracy is associated with poor financial well-being around the world. PLOS ONE doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0260378
b. I recommend article for the authors just to read.
Kim KT, Cho, SH and Xiao, JJ (2022). Is Ignorance Bliss? Use of Alternative Financial Services, Financial Knowledge, and Financial Anxiety. JOURNAL OF FAMILY AND ECONOMIC ISSUES. DOI: 10.1007/s10834-022-09883-8
Cohen, LD and Rubinsten, O (2022). Math anxiety and deficient executive control: does reappraisal modulate this link? ANNALS OF THE NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
To summarize, I believe the research idea is an interesting one and the authors have done a fine job addressing some components of the research. I hope the author(s) can use my comments here to improve upon that base of knowledge to produce a more informative paper that would contribute to the vibrant research on the topic..
After correcting the above errors, I recommend the article for publication because it provides new scientific results by analysing the given area.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The changes met the suggestions and the paper is much better. I recommend the publication of the paper.
Author Response
We thank the reviewer for their time and investment in improving our manuscript.
Reviewer 3 Report
The main issue of study stayed present.
Sample is unbalanced. There are two solutions with this:
a) Expand the sample and balance it
b) Use ponder to balance sample
Age problem
The sample is lean of left (young sample). The M in the research is 30.
1st state what M stands for ( it could be mean, median).
2nd The average age (of the overall population) in Canada for 2022 was 41.7 y. The sample surveyed was 18-69. So the M of 30 is lean on left.
In the Multiple Regression age was used as independent variable with the logic that age has linear impact. For example, higher age has linear effect on Financial knowledge (and that is not a case, can be but is unlikely).
This is not anonymous survey. You have collected e-mails and you may link answers with the participants. If the third party was collecting that information for you and deleted e-mails and provided you data without e-mail addresses in that case, we may say that this is anonymous survey. This is confidential survey. This information should be stated in the text.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 3
Reviewer 3 Report
No comments.
